Immanuel: God With Us
“’and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means God with us)”
Is there no sweeter sound than Immanuel? Christ’s name, God with us. Those three words heal an ocean of hurts, give courage to the weakest heart, and lifts the head of the weariest pilgrim. In those three words all of our hope rests.
GOD
“For by him all things were created. He is the beginning. For in him all the fullness of God was please to dwell. He is preeminent.”
The Creator became part of creation. The Creation creates Himself a human hand in order to join hands with His creation. Life comes to die. Love comes to be hated. Jesus, the Christ child, the God man, sustained all of creation while he was being born. He was God, yet he stooped down to us. He came to us. He lived a life of restrained power. Only using his deity to help and to heal. The crippled walk again, the blind able to see, dead people alive, disease and sickness healed. And if all this wasn’t enough He “saved people from their sin.” His most awe inspiring display of power was when he was stripped, mocked, beaten, humiliated, and finally murdered. There on that cross he did accomplish the unimaginable; Forgiveness of sins. Then he followed that by being raised for our justification. Perfectly forgiven, perfectly holy, that is now our record.
WITH
This God, the sustainer of all, the first and the last, He is with us. The holidays can be a lonely time for so many of us. In the midst of the laughter and the celebrations we can feel isolated. We look around and it seems like every other person has everything we want, friends, family, happiness. Or maybe you have lost a loved one, and this time of the year increases the ache to see them again and that ache makes you feel empty. Or maybe you look at your life and think what am I doing here? Why is my family a mess, why don’t I have any friends? The temptations to despair are abounding. We see friends giving other friends presents, we hear about the best party ever, we see pictures on social media and the empty ache creeps in and invades your soul. To you, to those of you feeling the longing for something better, something more, Jesus speaks his name to you “God WITH us”.............................